


All These Things That I've Done

by t0talcha0s



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Gon has thoughts, Post-Anime, Pre-Black Whale, Reunion Fic, happy ending!, or like pre-reunion fic, whale island
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: The wind of Whale Island whispers its love to its people, it is warm and fulfills the hearts of the people that inhabit it. In the case of Gon Freecss though, he had left the island, found love, and returned to find the love of the Island not enough for him.
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs & Leorio Paladiknight, Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck
Comments: 6
Kudos: 90





	All These Things That I've Done

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neverwherever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwherever/gifts).



> These boys are Best Friends and I sometimes cannot fathom how much they love each other. Written as gen but like I get it y'all go head it's flowery. Required listening is Clone by Metric. 
> 
> Dedicated to Julia, you know the drill Whale Island and Boys and our love of hunter x hunter grows each day.

Two years ago, when Gon had first left for the Hunter Exam, the shore of Whale Island had been filled with bodies. Not just the usual milling of shoppers or fisherman or sailors who needed a drink before their next raised sail, but crowds of people who adored the island’s son and gathered to wish him well. The crush of smiling faces and waving hands remains one of Gon’s most treasured memories of his home. Not only was it the beginning of his grand journey but it was a reminder that, no matter his pedigree or misadventures, he always had a home to return to. 

On the dock when Gon returned, two years older and two years taller, stood his aunt and his great-grandmother and a handful of other people who stood and gawked with open curiosity at the Freecss reunion. Mito’s arms opened wide and round as a smile and Gon jumped from the boat and slotted himself into her. There was a space for him, between her ribs and her forearms, and as she breathed he noticed how he fit differently than before.

“You’ve gotten so big” she said, tugging on a strand of his hair “and your hair is so long.” 

Being back on Whale Island felt like a dream. Unreal candy-bright flowers and the curved labyrinth of the rivers and the sun on the ocean. The first few days were a hum of excitement, Gon visiting all of the people he hadn’t seen in a year, telling his stories to shocked acquaintances and sailors 

“Killua and I took on Heaven’s arena!”

“Killua and I got captured by assassins, twice!” 

“Killua and I beat Greed Island!”

_I miss Killua._

“Killua and I travelled across the whole eastern hemisphere!”

“Killua and I”

“Killua and I”

_I miss Killua._

“Killua”

_I miss Killua._

“Killua”

_I miss Killua._

“I miss Killua.” He finally said to himself, out loud while he was washing dishes, the sturdy wooden stool Mito made for him long ago creaking beneath his feet. 

“What was that Gon?” Mito asked, peeking her head in from the next room over. 

“I” The dish in his hand was decorated with little purple flowers. It was older than he was, an heirloom from people he didn’t know the names of. He stared at the flowers, stared and stared until they blended together, until his eyes stung from the pressure behind them and the focus it took. “I miss Killua.” He squeezed the sponge until the soap dripped down his forearm and trickled off his elbow. “I miss him.” 

Mito looked on in concern, went to shoo him away from the dishes. 

“Don’t you think you’re a little big to need a stool now Gon?” She said as she took the sponge from his hand, slid the stool back to its place in the corner. She looked at her boy, slack-gazed with furrowed brows, and pursed her lips. “Why don’t you go pick me some raspberries, the bush in the back is going to get over-ripe if we don’t eat them soon.” Gon looked at her, eyes refocused after the request and nodded, a little slow but genuine. 

“Yeah.” He said. “I can do that.” 

-

 **Gon:** _Where’re you and Alluka rn?_

Two hours pass

 **Killua:** _Kakin, something about a recently excavated city Alluka wanted to explore_  
**Gon:** _Is it cool?_  
**Killua:** _Not there yet, lots of trains, they have that tea brand you like in the dining car, that one your aunt buys._  
**Gon:** _A taste of home!_

He sends it before he can think to correct himself 

**Killua:** _Something like that_

Gon’s fingers sit over the keys and he’s smiling, it’s never not great to hear from Killua, but there’s something in his chest, like the feeling right before you cough, so he pockets his phone and heads outside. When he feels this way the best remedy is to climb a tree. 

The Freecss home is situated on the tail of Whale Island, perched a little ways from the cliff where storm-battered waves make their mark. There is a tree on the cliff. It is a large tree with a canopy that intrudes the skyline, makes the world seem green. Gon is well acquainted with the tree and, now, it is no longer the largest one he’s climbed. It hasn’t been for years but the familiar wind-broke bark smooths comfortably under his palms. It is perhaps his favorite tree, or maybe that’s the one where he caught the master of the swamp, or maybe that’s the lemon tree in their front yard, or maybe that’s the world tree, but that doesn’t sound right. It’s his favorite tree then, and it is big and comfortable and as Gon settles into a familiar fork to rest his legs he notices how it has grown as he has, how he still fits. The salt breeze rustles the leaves around him and Gon takes a moment to breathe. He closes his eyes and settles his spine against the tree. He trusts this tree, can feel its energy, its spirit. It is a good and sturdy tree. 

_I hurt Killua_

Gon’s careful breath stops. There is something in his lungs, something sharp and stabbing, and it travels up up his chest into his eyes and into his nose and Gon can’t breathe anymore and Gon’s vision blurs into a blue-clear mosaic. Gon has tried so hard not to think about it, not to think about him, how he’s off somewhere else with someone else having wild adventures with not-Gon. How every inch of his home reminds him how they shared the same blanket during a hurricane, how he would leave his shoes in the doorway where Gon would trip over them, how he would follow Gon’s every step into the forest, trusting and curious, how for two years it was his world: Killua Killua Killua Killua. 

How every inch of himself reminds him of their adventures too: the new dent of his skull from Canary’s staff, the curve on his shoulder from one of Gido’s tops, the rough patch of skin on the back of his hand from arm wrestling Nobunaga, the muscle from Greed Island, the sparse knowledge of where Killua touched him, every fist bump and Killua’s back branded into his stomach from how often he’d had to carry Gon near the end. Gon hates that there was an end. Gon hates that it was his fault. 

How it was his fault, every bit of it, blunders all his own. 

Tree bark cuts into his skin and the breeze cuts a nasty chill through him and his tears have slowed but will not stop. Gon feels very very small and far too cold. It feels wrong to sit up here now, in this tree surrounded by the familiar, soft leaves and the comforting smell of laundry drying in the Whale Island sun. Not without Killua, not when there’s a stuffed guilt overloading Gon’s chest. 

The worst part of all of it is how he can imagine Killua here, dangling from his knees on an adjacent branch, complaining about how ‘it gets so buggy in summer here’ and shooting Gon that look that reminds Gon that Killua, despite growing up in what could have been a national park, has all the nature tolerance of a city boy. But he can’t imagine it, not really. But Killua’s not there, he's in Kakin with his sister and he is moving on, and he may not even be thinking of Gon. Gon may just be a brand of tea now, a shade of green, sharp eyebrows and amber eyes that line his memory. How desperately he craves for Killua again, Gon doesn’t know what he would do if any of that was true.

“Gon!” A call comes from the window “hot pot’s on!” Gon scrambles down the tree and towards the house. He stops himself right before the door, scrubs his eyes until they’re clear but stinging red, until his face is totally dry. Mito still notices. “Gon.” She says again, less command and more concern. She sets the plates she was carrying to the table down, stifles the urge to rush to him. “Gon what’s the matter?” Gon’s tears flood back up, crashing against the back of his eyes, he hiccups to cover a sob. 

“I just. I was climbing the tree.” He says and he’s crying again and Mito follows her instincts and rushes to him, pulling him into her arms. He shoves his nose into her shoulder “I was climbing the tree. I was up the tree.” and he can’t stop repeating himself, can’t move any further in the thought. Stuck in place. Mito holds him close and he cries until he can’t and he can’t even talk about the tree, and he can’t. 

“That damn tree.” Mito sighed, rubbing lovely circles on his back “always been trouble. When you were little you used to climb that tree during storms, told me you wanted a closer look at the lightning, I can’t tell you how bad you scared me, I was so worried you’d get struck.”

-

Leorio calls Gon every Sunday, without fail. Gon wakes up each week expecting it, bounding out into town where the reception is better and where he can pace while he talks. Gon likes to walk while on the phone. He likes to trace the roads of the town with his feet, memorize each little cobblestone as he knits his conversation through the din of the docks and the shops and the seaside. It’s like clockwork, Leorio’s calls, the same time each week, a constant presence to remind Gon that time is moving, that each day is different from the last, that his friends are out in the world. Without him. 

“Hey Gon!” Leorio says each time, never not excited to talk to him. It makes Gon smile, how loud he is, how brash. 

“Leorio! What’s new?”

“Oh you know, school and studying, professors are working me like a dog this close to midterms. It’s like they don’t expect a guy to sleep! I got like 7 hours of sleep this week Gon, total.” Gon laughs and doesn’t understand why anyone would willingly put themselves through more school then they had to. “How’re you, how’s the family?” 

“We’re good! Fiddlehead ferns are in season and Aunt Mito has been frying them up like every night! I’ve started dreaming about them!” 

“Are they good?” 

“They’re delicious it’s just so! Many! Of them!” Leorio laughs. 

“You’re gonna have green skin next time I see you.” 

“And you’ll have a hunchback from studying.” 

“I probably already do!” Gon lept over a small shrub sticking its way through the stone of the sidewalk. “But I was thinking Gon, it has been too long since I’ve seen you. Spring break is coming up, how about I visit? I tried calling Kurapika or Killua but you know how they are. so, just me?” 

“Yes!” It ripped out of him from instinct “yes Leorio, please!” 

“Awesome, spring break’s not for two more weeks but I’ll see you soon yeah?”

‘Yeah!” 

-

The boat Leorio arrives on is painted purple and named the “Miranda”. Leorio stands on the prow and waves great arcs of blurred black fabric. As Leorio’s feet hit the pavement of the dock Gon jumps up and into his arms and he hugs Leorio with every inch of love he hasn’t been able to express in the solitude of Whale Island, all the love stored up for months and months for Leorio and for Kurapika and for Killua and Kite and all of them. Everyone poured into his arms around Leorio’s. Leorio laughs and it’s bright and hangs in the air like the falling feathers of seabirds. Gon hops out of his arms and Leorio looks mostly the same: the same light green tie, the same small glasses, the same expressive eyebrows. He looks at Gon, smiles broadly, and scoops him back up into a second hug. 

“It is so good to see you!” 

Gon led Leorio in bouncing steps up to the top of the hill. Gon arrives first, Leorio out of practice and out of breath from his time studying. He turns to face the incline where a slight panting head of black crests the hill. There is a moment, a short one, before Leorio is in view, where Gon remembers a year back. This hill, this salt-whipped wind, a different boy, a different time, a different sensation in his chest. It used to be ever rising, his heart, up and up and up until there was nowhere for it to sit but his eyes and his smile and his nose. It hasn’t fallen, it is still there and it loves adventures and it urges him to smile, but the strength has been tampered. As Leorio comes into view Gon still smiles and though he wishes Killua was here Leorio, for now, is enough. 

For dinner Mito makes hushpuppies and paella and a great big salad of leafy greens and asks Leorio all kinds of questions about school and medicine and skirts around Gon’s injury with a cruel sense of curiosity. She asks him why he wanted to come to Whale Island and smiles when Leorio says 

“To see Gon!” Mito nods in appreciation. 

“What are you going to do with your time here?” Gon speaks up first 

“Well we’re going to go to the beach and I want to show Leorio the river where I caught the master of the swamp and we can go to the weekend market tomorrow!” Leorio smiles over his drink and agrees. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a vacation.” He leans back in his chair and smiles wearily at Gon, stress of school had settled into his brow but the daze of Whale Island has begun to iron them out. Gon face splits and the white of his teeth and his golden eyes and Leorio cannot hide his fondness.

The next day, as Leorio and Gon walk into town he asks Gon what it is he’s been up to. 

“Oh I fish,” he says “I used to bring all the fish home but Mito said it was too much so now I catch and release. I explore the sea caves, I hike the jungle, I swim in the swamp,” Gon’s thought sticks for a moment, the realization that each of these activities are solitary, that his time is spent alone. He shakes the thought from his ears and moves onward. “I do schoolwork” He sticks his tongue out- disgust. Leorio laughs 

“That I understand. I have an eight page paper due at the end of this week.” 

“Eight pages!” 

“Don’t go to college Gon. It’s not worth it.” 

“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” The pair walk into town, where the weekend market has set itself up in colorful tents and eclectic vendors. Gon hops from stall to stall with a familiarity that says Gon must do this every Saturday. Each vendor says hello to Gon and welcomes Leorio to the Island fondly. They sneak Gon little treats and ask him about the health of his great-grandmother and wonder if he’s found anything in the wilderness of Whale Island that would suit their interests. _Yes!_ he tells the medicine-seller _there’s a root on the eastern side of the volcano that does wonders for skin infections! Yes!_ he tells the maker of fishing rods _the reeds from the inlands swamp are lightweight but very strong! They make great line! Yes!_ he tells the matchmaker _Leorio is single!_ Leorio protests while Gon and the matchmaker laugh. 

“‘I’m only in town for the week!” He assures and the way he says it makes something in Gon’s body ache. After the market, where Gon buys some berries Mito requested and some new yarn for Abe’s knitting, Leorio and Gon go down to the docks to admire the ocean and see if any of Gon’s favorite sailors were in town. Offhandedly, as they admire the puffed sails and white crested tongues of ocean waves, Leorio says 

“I’d better get used to this.” 

“What do you mean?” Gon asks and he’s reminded of a moment with Killua, while they were on Greed Island. _It’s good to be with someone who’s unafraid to ask questions_ he’d said, after their meeting with those looking to take down the bomber. Gon had smiled at him and admired the way the dust of the wastelands gave some color to Killua’s skin. He found himself wondering if Killua had lived somewhere like he had, somewhere where the warmth of the sun didn’t get thinned and shrouded from the recesses of his home, if he would get tan or if he would turn red like a spawning salmon. He looked up from his memories, back at Leorio, who chewed his bottom lip with an uncharacteristic sort of hesitation. 

“Well,” he starts, “I’m going on a voyage soon, for a few months or so, probably longer.” 

“Where are you going?” 

“Kurapika and I, and the Zodiacs, we’re.” He stops “I don’t, I don’t really know how to explain this. There’s an unexplored continent, out past Ochina, and” Leorio stumbles around his explanation and Gon, making a mental connection. 

“You’re going to the dark continent!” He exclaims, loud, and Leorio almost winces. 

“Hey, hey, yes, how do you know about that?” 

“Ging wants to go there!” He sits with that a second “Ging wants to go there, Leorio are you and Kurapika going to be okay? Why are you going? What’re you gonna find!?” Leorio, admiring the splitting curiosity of Gon’s enthusiasm, hunches a bit under his gaze. 

“I don’t know, it’s a lot of politic stuff that I just don’t understand, but I know it’s going to be tough and I know it’s going to take a long time. I wanted to see you before I left because I don’t know when I’ll see you next.” He looks almost sorry. 

“You and Kurapika are going?” 

“Yeah.”

“For a long time?” 

“Yeah.” He bites his tongue on the last question, holds back the earnest _can I come?_ Leorio seems to know it anyway and fiddles with the buttons on his coat sleeves. “I just felt like I hadn’t seen you and Killua in so long, and he won’t text me back, and I wanted to say I’m really sorry for not being there for you. I don’t know a lot about what happened but I’ve heard bits and pieces and I could have been there for you. What was I doing you know? Med school? I should have been there. You guys are so young and no one should go through that and I just, you two are really important Gon, and important to me, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you when you needed someone.” 

Gon blinks. This, Leorio’s regret and his love and the fact that he talks about Gon and Pitou like it was something that happened to him as opposed to something he’d done. Something wet prickles at the back of Gon’s eyes and he swallowed. His throat struggled and stuttered around his words.

“That’s not it Leorio, it was me, it was all my fault and I wasn’t strong enough. And I. I did it all wrong, the whole thing. I hurt him, I hurt Killua.” 

“Gon.” He looks at him, the familiar crinkling of his chin giving away Leorio’s withheld tears. “Have you talked to Killlua about this?” 

“We didn’t really have the time.” 

“I’m going to hug you.” Leorio says and huddles Gon up in his arms and the two of them stand on the dock lit by the afternoon sun and try not to sniffle as they hold one another tight. Eventually though their moment is broken and they pull apart, rosy-cheeked and breathing in gasps, and Gon smiles and Leorio laughs and laughs. 

“You look like a mess,” Gon says to him and Leorio nods 

“You should see yourself.” and they pick themselves up, scrape themselves back together, and head back up to the house on the tip of the island. 

-

When Leorio is asleep, sapped of his energy from the expelling of their emotions earlier, Gon thinks about his words and steps out of the front door out towards the jungles of Whale Island. His feet carry him over familiar stones and ancestral pathways and into the comforting mud of dry-season riverbeds that have preserved his footprints of years previous. He watches his feet, and he watches the movement of bugs in the bushes, and he watches the sky. 

When Killua had been here it had been easy to talk. They’d talked about his father and goals and sticking together and it was so easy to say it like that would somehow have made it permanent. Killua had said he would stay with Gon until he found something he’d wanted to do. And he had now. Gon didn’t know why he was upset about it. He’d found Ging, he’d done a whole lot along the way, what else was he supposed to do? 

Gon puts his arm above his head, pushing a low hanging branch out of his path, crouching to allow his passage. 

And yeah he missed Killua, maybe he’d gotten ahead of himself with his dreaming. He’d always just assumed Killua would be by his side. When they were twelve it was a given: it was Gon _and_ Killua, always. Even now, during his visit, Leorio always speaks Gon’s name like he’s not done saying it, like there’s a portion he’s leaving out, like the breath at the end of “Gon” should naturally lift up and turn slightly and say “Killua”. It hurt to know that that was so far away, that “Killua” had become “Killua and Alluka” and he was left just “Gon”. 

The waning moon left sparse spots of reflection on the ground between the leaves and the underbrush and the darting figures of night animals. On the water it played magic tricks, waving collections of silver on blue. Gon didn’t know why but he held his breath. 

Without his permission Gon walks the whole length of the island, up to the blow spout and down to the tide pools in its curved back and out to the ocean to dip his fingers in the cooling sand that bubbled with life under the surface. It took hours and hours and Gon didn’t even realize he was doing it. He prodded curious fingers at his home and he gazed with appreciation at the waterways and creatures but he didn’t acknowledge it. He walked and he thought about Killua and he sat on the Oceanside and thought about Killua and he climbed a tree in Kon’s territory to see if he could spot him and thought about Killua and he watched the flicker-wings of dragonflies and thought about Killua and he held his knees to his chest and he thought about Killua and he pressed his fingers into his hair and he thought about Killua and he couldn’t breathe and he thought about Killua and he wondered if he had forgotten how to breathe like he’d forgotten how to live without Killua. It didn’t seem right, him without Killua, and he held himself as the oranges of morning burst around the outline of Whale Island and he didn’t breathe and he didn’t cry and he pictured the blue of the water as his eyes and the silver of the clouds as his hair and as the sun had come into view fully he got himself up from his spot and slowly, without thought or clarity, walked himself to his home. 

-

Leorio, Abe, and Mito were already up, sitting at the table with sage tea. Mito’s eyes were red and sharp and worried mad. Leorio was saying something to her, but they were all silent as the door slid open in the morning vestiges of the sun. 

“Gon,” she said as he entered, relieved and angry. She was not surprised, Gon had done this before, but never with a visitor over. “where have you been?” Gon turned his palms up, empty, nothing to show for his travels. 

“I went on a walk.” She sighed, rubbing her fingertips against her temples. She had no words for him and after taking a moment to herself, glanced up at him and smiled. 

“You have to tell us when you do this Gon, I trust you to be safe, you just worry us love.” He nodded and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, and as Abe moved to pour him a cup of tea, Gon sprung over to the table and took a seat between Abe and Leorio. 

-

He and Leorio went to the swamps and went to the beach and he and Leorio ran and fished and laughed and laughed but by the end of the week they were exhausted and Leorio stood shift-footed on the dock. The boat Leorio was leaving on was much plainer than the one he arrived on and Gon thought it didn’t fit him, the simple facade. It was the middle of the day and the shadows were short and dark, the island sun had turned Leorio’s nose pink. 

Gon moved to hug Leorio, wrapped his arms tight around his slim waist. He turned his head and looked out at the familiar landscape of Whale Island docks. Tears tickled the backs of his eyes and he wanted to tell Leorio to be safe and to have fun and to take him with him please take me with you it’s been so long since I’ve had an adventure Leorio I’ve been stuck here all this time without you without him I’m so bored and so lonely I know it’s dangerous I know I’m weak but anything don’t forget me take me too. He didn’t say this though. He just shoved his cheek into the fabric of Leorio’s suit jacket and felt Leorio’s hands grab tightly at him. 

“It won’t be too long Gon. Kurapika and I’ll make it out. You know him, he’s a survivor.” Another name stuck itself on his tongue. “And you should call him, really, I know he’d love to hear from you.” Gon begins to pull away from him and he looks at Leorio and tries to remember everything about how he is now: the wrinkle of his tie, the hairs between his eyebrows, the pitch of his voice. He wishes he could see his aura, could see that he’ll be safe in a world where there are monsters who are dangerously strong. 

When Gon was younger, four or five, Mito would always say to him 

“Don’t go where I can’t follow you.” She’d say “This island is small and friendly but there are things that will hurt you and there are places I cannot be with you to protect you.” Then she’d smile and say “and I love this island like I love you, I want you to see it with me.”

“You have to tell me all about it when you get back!” Gon says instead. 

“I will, I’ll keep texting you until I can’t anymore and I’ll text you on the way back too.” And Gon nodded and agreed and had turned his way back into the wilderness of the island before the boat had even left. 

-

The waters around Whale Island are calm and wide. It makes it an ideal outpost: no harsh currents or battering waves, just a slow sort of liveliness and the calm excitement of island folk. Though it’s best not to be fooled by the serene nature of the wilderness. The rivers hold monsters and the plains hold poisons and if you are not familiar with it you’ll be snapped away within moments. Gon is familiar to the island, he slots into it as though he is just another danger gracing its hilltop. So when Gon swims in the deceivingly mellow ocean he is invited in as a family member. The fish nibble his legs and behind his ears, the waves rock him in graceful arches, he breathes and submerges and watches little bubbles of his air rise up and explode on the surface. 

He hadn’t texted Killua, not yet, he didn’t know what to say. It’s not like there was anything new to convey. Since their split he’s felt the same. In his head, as a ray bumps itself across the ocean floor, Gon thinks about how to begin talking to him. 

“Hey Killua! Leorio visited”

“Killua, how’re you and your sister?” 

“Killua I miss you.”

“Hi Killua where’ve you been lately?” 

“Found anything exciting this month?” 

“Sorry I haven’t texted you in a month.”

“I miss you.” 

Gon dove deep under the waves, exhaling great bursts of bubbles in frustration. When he rose to the top it was still there, a great unknowing of how. It sat beneath his chest and pushed at his lungs when he exhaled to swim. His hair spread into inky blots around his head and he pulled at one of the strands and thought _Mito was right, it is getting long._ He swam for a long time, until his legs and arms ached, and then he floated. When he got out of the ocean his fingers were pruned so bad they hurt. He pulled on his jacket and his boots and walked familiar steps back home. 

-

Gon’s phone laid on his desk. It was mostly silent, sometimes a text from Leorio but they were getting more infrequent and usually came late at night. When Gon couldn’t sleep he would look at it and look at it. 

**Gon:** _Hey Killua_ he tried one night  
**Gon:** _Whatcha been up to?_

He fell asleep, phone in hand, waiting for a reply and awoke to a quiet buzz on the opposite side of his pillow. 

**Killua:** _Man it’s been crazy, my sisters almost got kidnapped up in Mimbo._  
**Killua:** _She’s okay now, she wanted me to tell you that._  
**Gon:** _Hi Alluka!_  
**Gon:** _That sounds really cool. What happened? Where’re you going to next?_  
**Killua:** _Kukan’yu. We’re making our way down south._

Gon thought about it, thought about how that was just one continent away, how an airship and a boat ride could bring Killua to where he was. He then stopped thinking about it. 

**Gon:** _Cool!_ He said instead  
**Gon:** _What’s to see there?_

-

Mito sees Gon’s lonely restlessness. How he takes longer to get out of bed, how he takes longer to get back from his hikes at night, how he sometimes looks out a little too far on the horizon as if there’s something there he wants to see. 

“Gon” she says to him as he is putting away the dishes. “I’m not trying to keep you here.” 

“I know,” the clink of a plate against another “I just can’t use nen anymore, I wouldn’t be very useful on an adventure.”

“You did plenty before you knew nen, this isn’t the end.” He looked at her, his eyes amber in a way that made them glow unreal. 

“I know.” He rubbed his thumbnail against the rim of a cup. “I’m just waiting.” 

“Until?” 

“Something.” 

-

 **Gon:** _Look at this snail I found!_  
**Gon:** _Old island legend says their purple shells are good for health and they almost went extinct because so many people hunted them._  
**Killua:** _Woah cool. You trying to make a health potion?_

-

On top of the whale spout Gon watches lava flies flit their little velvet wings across the rock. One of them lands on his shoulder and the buzz in his ear is deafening. 

-

 **Killua:** _Hey, Alluka and I are gonna be in Yorbia next month, wanna come meet us on the mainland._  
**Gon:** _YES!_

-

Gon booked a boat to the mainland the next day. 

“I’m going to visit my best friend!” He told the ticket broker. They smiled and said 

“Good sailing to you then.” The worst part was, after he’d bought the ticket, Gon had to go back home and wait a whole week until his trip. On the way home he climbed on top of a fence and balanced his way across the tips of it. He felt lighter, full of electricity, it thrummed through his joints and he threw his arms into the air and hollered. When he returned to the top of Whale Island Mito had a smile on her face and their largest suitcase beside her. She looked relieved, it had been a long time since she’d seen her boy this happy, since before he returned to her this time. 

Over dinner Gon told Mito and Abe all about his plans. 

“Killua and Alluka and I are meeting up at a port on the mainland and then we’re gonna catch a train inland! Alluka says there’s a theme park and a tourist market and all sorts of things she wants to see! She says there’s a nature preserve too with a blue hole in it! Killua thinks that sounds lame but I think it’ll be amazing!” Mito smiled and agreed and made him promise that he would be safe and he laughed and said “yeah of course! Can’t hurt yourself too bad swimming!” 

After dinner, after the dishes, Gon swung his feet over the cliffs out back of his house. The waves below broke into a great spray that, in the wet season, would soak his ankles. The moon made the mist seem like a pillow of great white clouds. There was the smell of home: citrus trees and dirt and ocean spray and the spring linen that had dried in this air earlier that day. Gon inhaled. He knew he was safe here and loved here but something about that was devastating in a way. He wanted to be out there, loved in an adventure, loving an adventure, loving those who adventure with him. He tipped his torso back onto the grass and weeds of his backyard. Would Killua be able to open his arms and accept him into his adventure again? Would he just be a third in Killua and Alluka’s adventure or would it then be their adventure? All of them? How did he, without nen, prove to Killua that he was worth keeping around, worth loving? Gon huffed through his nose, closing his eyes against the thought, against the weight in his chest that revealed how much he loved Killua, how much he urged to be by his side again. 

_I hurt Killua_

Gon clenched his jaw. Did he deserve to be loved by Killua now, now that he had hurt him, had caused him so much pain with every step he took. What could Gon say to convince him. He was sorry, he _was._ He was so sorry, so sorry and guilty it hurt his teeth at night. He just wasn’t great with words, he was a little stupid sometimes, he didn’t know how to say it. Gon’s breath caught and he pulled it in through his nose and forced it out of his mouth and eschewed his doubts. Killua has to want to see him, at least a little bit, he wouldn’t have invited Gon to come with him otherwise. The uncertainty still chewed at his ribs but he quieted it by drowning it in the cool night air, the sounds of beetles flapping their wings, the waves beneath his feet. He fell asleep in the grass, his legs over the cliff, and woke up itchy all over. 

-

The boat to the mainland was a pale blue and had a tidy white trim. It had to be a new vessel, the white was still unchipped, unmarred. Gon picked at a peeling piece of paint on the railing and watched it flutter into the sea below. Mito had packed him a bento, a large one, and kissed him on the forehead before he left. His backpack jingled with cookies she had made for Alluka and Killua 

“He likes sweets,” she recalled that morning “I’m sure his sister does too.” 

Gon’s fingertips buzzed with a wary excitement. During the journey he paced the length of the ship, talking to the captain and the crewmates and telling them all where he was going. 

“I’m going to see my best friend!” He’d say “We’re both hunters!”

The insecurity, whenever he took a moment of the voyage to relax or to eat, crawled in between his teeth and made them stick and hurt. He tried to ignore it, but it settled and made home in him. He remembered Killua as he had left him: smiling, wide eyed, he looked younger and smaller in his memory, happy. He remembered how he felt in that last moment: like he wanted to cry and like he wanted to vomit and like he wanted to turn back and hug him and keep him close and say _climb the world tree with me, this is your journey as much as it is mine._ He wonders if Killua would have said yes, if at that moment Killua even wanted to travel with him, if he wanted to now. 

As the boat stopped Gon felt the shudder of it being tied to the docks and he ran to the prow. He hesitated as he stepped foot on the gangplank, then shook his head and darted downward. There in the milling of the dock were two people hair black and hair white and Gon made eye contact with Killua and he smiled and every bit of it, everything he had thought in his absence, puffed away as easy as smoke. Killua was taller and Killua’s eyes were bright blue and he held up a hand and started to say 

“Yo Gon” and he only got halfway through before they both began to move and they crashed together. A tangle of limbs and love, nothing halfway lost in their time apart, the ache of missing gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Gon Freecss I love him so much.  
> Leave me a comment! Also, catch me on twitter @poetforprofit I talk about Gon Freecss a lot.


End file.
